Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana: in qua manuscriptos codices Syriacos, Arabicos, Persicos, Turcicos, Hebraicos, Samaritanos, Armenicos, Aethiopicos, Graecos, Aegyptaicos, Ibericos, & Malabaricos: jussu et munificentia Clementis XI, pontificus Maximi: in three volumes

Rome: Typis Scarae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1719. First Edition. Softcover. Disbound as issued, spines stitched in preparation for fine binding. Page edges untrimmed. Some wear and tear as with age. Text remains well preserved overall with no blemish. Stamp from Catholic college at Dublin for the Foreign Missions. Physical description; three volumes: I-III:part I. Contents; Vol. I: De Scriptoribus Syris Orthodoxis; 648 pp., Latin and Syriac text ; Vol. II: De Scriptoribus Syris Monophysitis; 546 pp. ; Vol. III: part I: De Scriptoribus Syris Nestorianis; 709 pp., Latin, Syriac and Arabic text. Summary; First edition of the author's magnum opus, a monumental bio-bibliography of Syriac literature based on the manuscript holdings of the Vatican Library. This edition was almost entirely destroyed by fire which broke out in 1768 in Assemani s apartment near the Vatican Library. The large part of this monumental work was collected by Assemani himself, who returned from a collection expedition to Egypt and Syria that took place from 1715 to 1717, carrying more than 150 manuscripts, which were placed in the Vatican Library, where they formed the nucleus of the library s subsequently famous collection of Oriental manuscripts. Joseph Assemani was one of the Lebanese scholars who studied in Rome, and who had a profound impact on the field of Oriental studies in Europe in the 18th century. Assemani was appointed Prefect, devoting most of his life carrying out an extensive plan for editing and publishing the most valuable Syraic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Persian, Hebrew and Greek manuscripts kept in the Vatican Library. Besides his various publications on a wide range of Oriental subjects, this work is considered his best achievement. It was supposed to contain twenty volumes, of which six were supposed to cover Oriental languages, for Greek and the last ten other languages, but he was only able to finish three before his death. He was succeeded by another member of the Assemani famiy, Istifan Awad Assemani (1709-1782), who continued cataloguing the manuscripts in the Vatican Library and other libraries in Italy. Subjects; Joseph Simonius Assemanus. Bibliotheca Orientalis. Oriental Manuscripts. Egypt. Syria. Syraic langague. Greek language. Arabic language. Ethiopic language. Armenian language. Persian language. Hebrew Language. Oriental languages. Vatican Library.